Sunday, 15 January 2017

Depression. Difficult, isn't it? Everyone has it, don't they? Seems so in the last ten years in Great Britain. Yes, besides the unaware club at school who don't yet know what depression is, the germinating angst-turned-despair of the mental illness that becomes all-consuming to some of us is no stranger. It's the black dog following us home, as Oxford's Little Red like to say. "Black Eyes" is a concept mix for the accompanying lyric, "this black dog, is everywhere I go". Because: how does depression "change" us? Personally this is highly interesting - not for the sob stories, but for the perception area.

Say I am having a conversation with my mate - let's call him Rob. Rob likes good conversation, but has a bit of a temper. The depression latches onto Rob's temper and creates a facsimile - or a false projection - of the actual reality at hand. In the interest of attachment psychology, this could be referred to as "predestined selection". What makes depression different? For me, there is something about the parasitic logic of hormones in the body, gestating and losing it - to bring us back to the conversation, my spiel is where "Rob" loses his temper, and opens a bottle of Scrumpy Jack. Depression - the notion - leads to a device for depression - the dis-ease; the alcohol; the black eye in a fist fight at worst; the black eye, rather in the eyes of the depression sufferer.

Do not worry if this does not make sense to you. But to document depression for my family, it does explain much. Take me at secondary school. Before Americanised "High School", I was a cheerful infant. I used to look at cars all day from a closed window on the road passing by (I lived on a main road at the time). What you should know: at secondary school, I came home regularly miserable, this is no lie. Yet, in long term recall, there were several moments per week when I had lots of friendlyencounters. At times, I was high as a kite! Does this not seem odd? Fanciful, even? Seems so. But perhaps the gain (mixology) I put on the volume of the encounters - i.e putting myself into lots of situations at school where I felt uncomfortable, but what created almost heavenly sociological results in terms of maturing and maturing my obsession for music - which I was very kindly allowed by tutors and heads without bullying or confiscation obtruding it - created a seismically big paradox.

The paradox being, and reasoning, is this where my bipolar started?

Is this where I started to become schizophrenic?

I would like to think, not unreasonably so for my own sanity, that this was the case. It also leads me to believe everyone has the time of their life at school, in their own way. Despite me never being bullied, yet occasionally being a popular choice for conversation (I was always either quiet or rejecting, but not awkward, just peaceful), me, I, had the time of my life. And this is the polarisation of wide-eyed-wonder, not black eyes at all. Man and woman often thinks of what is to be achieved by undergoing a task, any task at that, great or small, it all comes down to priorities these days, simples life, yours gratefuls, kisses. But let's recoup our logic on depression and my theorising. Life seems to change when we positively engage with it; life seems to disappear when we move away from it. This is simple and related to the laws of physics, acceleration and entry and exit gates. So to suggest a neutralising (depression) additive to create a neutralising outcome, is not implausible. But we really need to get a "hold" on the actual physicality of the life environment for any of this to mean something worthwhile. In short "actions speak louder than words". Life is bigger than logic.

Summary: depression is neutralising of an environmental perception by the individual, whether observer, undertaker or pacifist; life is bigger than these events sound, and adds a large sense of reality to the proceedings.

Whether we choose to believe the emotions in "Black Eyes": well, that's another story entirely...

Sunday, 8 January 2017

Where my mind bleats for quiet, my heart skips for an answerWhere my head loses memories by the second, a whisper is often something I can musterI musterTo myselfthat cold cold chillThat permeates the radium of the worldTurning pipes inside outPiping hot food used for body charcoalAnd the ash of time as a vanguard for nails on a cross.